Education Department Opens Investigations Into Fayetteville and Milwaukee, Says Discipline Can't Use Race

The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday told schools that student-discipline policies cannot treat students differently by race and, at the same time, opened Title VI investigations into two school districts in Arkansas and Wisconsin over allegations that race may have been considered in discipline decisions.

The districts are Fayetteville Public Schools in Arkansas and Milwaukee Public Schools in Wisconsin. In Fayetteville, the department said teachers were allegedly directed to consider students’ racial identities as part of a restorative-justice effort aimed at addressing “disproportionality of discipline on students of color.” In Milwaukee, the department said school leaders had allegedly criticized facially neutral policies as reflecting systemic “whiteness,” which the department said appeared to encourage officials to consider race in disciplinary practices. The department announced investigations; it did not say either district had violated federal law.

The action came in an Aug. 18 press release announcing a new Dear Colleague letter on pupil discipline and Title VI compliance. The department said the guidance explains that discipline policies “must treat students even-handedly and must neither favor nor disfavor any student based on their race.” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act bars discrimination based on race, color and national origin by schools and other recipients of federal education funds.

The move is part of a broader shift in federal civil-rights enforcement. On July 23, 2026, the Education Department rescinded several disparate-impact provisions from its Title VI regulations. That followed a Dec. 9, 2025, final rule from the Justice Department removing disparate-impact liability from its own Title VI regulations. The Education Department tied both steps to a White House executive order signed in April 2025 directing agencies to eliminate disparate-impact liability in federal contexts.

In practice, that marks a change in what federal officials emphasize when they review school discipline. Under the older approach, agencies often used disparate-impact analysis to examine whether a facially neutral policy produced racially uneven outcomes. The current administration has shifted toward disparate treatment instead — whether a school intentionally treats students differently by race or explicitly tells staff to do so.

That is a notable reversal from the federal government’s recent posture on school discipline. Federal agencies had previously treated racial disparities in discipline as a civil-rights issue; for example, the Education and Justice departments issued a joint resource in May 2023 on racial discrimination in student discipline. Tuesday’s action instead centers on whether schools are using race itself in decision-making.

In the department’s press release, Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for civil rights, framed the change as a correction to prior policy. “For too long, the left’s pursuit of ‘equity’ has perversely required schools to discipline students differently, based on their race; it has prevented teachers from keeping their classrooms safe, put students in harm’s way, and severely compromised student learning opportunities,” Richey said. “Today’s guidance clarifies Title VI’s legal requirements and ends these harmful practices.”

The investigations are newly opened. The department’s release did not include responses from Fayetteville Public Schools or Milwaukee Public Schools, and no separate Office for Civil Rights case files or public case numbers tied to the new investigations were identified Tuesday.